30
The PRESENT STATE
in nature, a more imitative animal than a dunce.
From hence ancient learning may be distinguished into three periods. Its commencement, or the age of poets; its maturity, or the age of philosophers; and its decline, or the age of critics. In the commencement of learning, commentators were very few, but might have, in some respects, been useful. In its maturity, their assistance must necessarily become obnoxious, yet, as if the nearer we approached perfection, the more we stood in need of their directions, in this period they began to grow numerous. But when polite learning was no more, then it was those literary lawgivers made the most formidable appearance. Corruptissima republica, plurimæ leges. Tacit.
CHAP.
